For greater than three years, Moninder Singh has been residing every day realizing he could possibly be assassinated. Police have suggested the Canadian-born activist at least thrice they believed he was about to be killed.
As just lately as March, police notified him of an imminent risk to his life and, in April, steered he keep away from public occasions. The warnings all got here from the RCMP nationwide safety unit.
As a longtime B.C.-based campaigner for independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state, Singh is assured he is aware of who needs him lifeless: the federal government of India.
The threats have compelled him to vacate his dwelling for months at a time, so his children wouldn’t get caught within the crossfire, and transfer into inns and Airbnbs, reserving rooms below false names and utilizing borrowed bank cards, attempting to cowl his tracks.
“No person ought to need to stay like this,” he advised International Information in an interview final week at his Surrey, B.C., residence.
Singh isn’t complaining, or hiding, and he has solely ramped up the activism that upsets India. However with Prime Minister Mark Carney now mending ties with New Delhi within the identify of commerce, he feels let down.
Canadian Sikhs, significantly these like Singh who maintain management positions, are the first targets of Indian transnational repression and disinformation.
The RCMP has linked Indian brokers to the 2023 homicide of a B.C. Sikh temple chief, in addition to shootings, extortions, arsons and assassination plots.
The overseas interference inquiry discovered that India’s meddling in Canadian elections, which allegedly included secretly financing candidates, was outpaced solely by that of China.
India has nonetheless not publicly acknowledged its actions or promised to cease them, however the Carney authorities is nonetheless pushing to not solely renew ties with New Delhi, however to deepen them.
“I feel your complete Sikh group, together with myself, really feel a way of betrayal on this,” Singh stated. “However I additionally really feel that it’s a betrayal of all Canadians and what Canada stands for.”
The prime minister’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. Nor did India’s excessive commissioner in Ottawa, who just lately denied any misdeeds by his authorities.
International Affairs Minister Anita Anand stated in a press release to International Information that it was “unequivocally false to assert that Canada’s overseas coverage ignores these issues.”
Canada continues to “increase these critical issues with India. I raised safety issues instantly in my conferences and there may be additionally an everyday legislation enforcement dialogue between senior officers in each nations,” she stated.
She pointed to an ongoing RCMP investigation and the addition of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which India allegedly makes use of to commit violence in Canada, to the federal government’s record of terrorist organizations.
“We’re thus taking quite a few steps and we are going to proceed to uphold the rule of legislation with a purpose to make sure that all Canadians are protected,” Anand stated.
A Sikh volunteer stands guard close to the sacred pond of the Golden Temple, Amritsar, India, Nov. 21, 2010. (AP Picture/Sanjeev Syal).
That doesn’t consolation Singh, who continues to be ready for India to be held to account for what it has allegedly accomplished in Canada.
Singh grew up in Clearwater, then a logging mill city within the B.C. Inside, listening to in regards to the Punjab from his father, a forest business employee initially from India.
When Singh was nonetheless a younger boy, the Indian military stormed the Golden Temple, certainly one of Sikhism’s holiest websites, the place separatist militants have been holed up.
The army operation was meant to crush the Khalistan motion that was in search of independence for the Punjab, however solely infected it.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards 5 months later, and in 1985, pro-Khalistan terrorists planted bombs on two Air India flights departing Canada, killing 331 folks.
Singh stated his father was “distraught” by the occasions in his homeland and started campaigning for Punjab’s separation.
“I used to be very younger on the time, however I watched and I used to be concerned and I used to be part of protests,” Singh stated.
“And as I bought into my teenage years, I used to be already form of well-versed in what our folks have been going by means of within the state of Punjab.”
As a Sikh youth chief in B.C.’s Decrease Mainland, Singh grew to become a number one voice for independence, which he sees as “reclaiming of the sovereignty we had earlier than British colonization.”
He has by no means been concerned in organizations selling violence, nor has he advocated for it, he stated, though he does imagine in the best to “self-defence.”
He now heads the Sikh Federation, which fashioned final yr to push again towards “transnational repression and overseas interference focusing on our group.”
Murder investigators have launched a map of the suspected route taken by gunmen who shot Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18, 2023.
Handout/Built-in Murder Investigation Workforce
Police first warned Singh his life was in danger in July 2022, the identical day fellow activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar acquired an analogous “responsibility to warn” discover.
RCMP Built-in Nationwide Safety Enforcement Workforce officers arrived at Singh’s home accompanied by little one and household companies staff, who successfully advised him he needed to transfer out for the sake of his children.
“It was very complicated as to what this responsibility to warn was, as a result of we had by no means heard of them earlier than,” he stated.
Though he went together with it, he didn’t take the risk that significantly — till eleven months later, when Nijjar was gunned down within the parking zone of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, the place he was president.
“If we weren’t taking it significantly sufficient the yr earlier than that, we undoubtedly have been after the assassination,” Singh stated.
Days later, the FBI introduced it had disrupted a second plot, this one towards Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based affiliate of Nijjar’s who was additionally a pro-Khalistan campaigner.
The U.S. investigation traced the plot to the Analysis and Evaluation Wing, or RAW, the intelligence arm that studies to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s workplace in New Delhi.
A RAW officer named Vikash Yadav had allegedly contracted the killing to an Indian organized crime determine, inducing him with cash and a promise to have excellent prices towards him dropped, however he had additionally talked about three targets in Canada.
The plots have been apparently pushed by a call to deal with the Khalistan motion exterior India as a significant safety downside, one which Ottawa was ignoring.
There was little proof to justify these issues. In line with the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service, pro-Khalistan extremists are solely a “small group.”
India’s hyperlinks to the Nijjar homicide marked “a major escalation in India’s repression efforts towards the Khalistan motion and a transparent intent to focus on people in North America,” CSIS wrote in its 2024 annual report.
Unacceptable sovereignty violation
RAW officer Vikash Yadav allegedly recruited an Indian organized crime determine to kill a U.S.-based Sikh activist, and spoke of three targets in Canada.
U.S. District Court docket
Canada did the best issues at first, in accordance with Singh.
Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau went public with India’s suspected function in Nijjar’s homicide in September 2023, calling the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil an “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”
Final October, citing a “vital risk to public security in our nation,” the RCMP introduced a broader sequence of crimes had been “orchestrated by brokers of the federal government of India.”
“Nicely over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” had been uncovered, prompting police to warn members of the South Asian group, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme stated.
He didn’t identify these on the hit record however they included Jagmeet Singh, who needed to lead the New Democratic Get together whereas below police safety.
Ottawa responded by expelling India’s excessive commissioner and 5 different Indian officers who have been deemed individuals of curiosity within the RCMP investigations.
However then the federal election introduced a brand new prime minister to energy, and the whole lot appeared to vary, Singh stated.
‘India grew to become viable once more’
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., on June 17, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld.
Elected to adapt Canada’s economic system to the problem of an erratic, pro-tariff White Home, Carney got here to workplace in search of out commerce companions in Europe and Asia.
“Someplace in all of that, India grew to become viable once more,” Singh stated. “And we principally washed the slate clear and allowed them again.”
“That, to us as a Sikh group, creates simply as massive, if not a much bigger threat now, as a result of now Canada is aware of the whole lot that India has accomplished.”
Carney started by inviting Modi, whose right-hand man Amit Shah was allegedly behind Nijjar’s killing, to the G7 summit in Alberta in June.
His overseas minister adopted up in August by asserting Canada and India have been restoring ties and appointing new excessive commissioners.
Nationwide Safety Advisor Nathalie Drouin visited New Delhi in September and stated India and Canada had “dedicated to non-interference together with refraining from transnational repression.”
“So I feel that we’ve discovered a manner, as I stated, to handle mutual issues and for leaders to have the ability to discuss [a] commerce relationship,” she advised reporters.
The RCMP has accused India of utilizing the Bishnoi gang, seen right here taking pictures at a home in Colwood, B.C., to assault targets in Canada.
B.C. court docket
Public Security Minister Gary Anandasangaree put the Bishnoi gang on Canada’s record of terror teams, however with out mentioning that the crime group works with the Indian state.
Anand met her Indian counterpart in New Delhi in October and stated that they had “reached consensus on a brand new street map for Canada-India relations.”
India has now invited Carney to India to forge a free commerce pact that was shelved when the RCMP uncovered proof Modi’s authorities was behind the Nijjar homicide.
Ottawa and New Delhi are engaged in a “law-enforcement dialogue,” International Affairs Canada stated, including Canada was “reassured by the extent of engagement and cooperation by India in latest months.”
“On the identical time, the worldwide context is shifting and Canada is going through new, main challenges. India is the world’s fourth largest economic system and a rustic of nice world consequence,” the division stated in a press release to International Information.
“It’s in Canada’s curiosity to strengthen these ties as a part of a broader effort to diversify commerce and higher handle the dangers that Canada is going through immediately.”
NDP public security critic Jenny Kwan, a goal of China’s overseas interference, stated it was “deeply troubling” that Carney was renewing ties with India.
“At a time when Canadians proceed to obtain responsibility to warn notices from the RCMP that their lives could also be in jeopardy, it’s unconscionable that the Carney authorities is re-engaging with India with out demanding accountability,” the MP advised International Information.
“It sends a harmful message — that the Liberals are keen to look the opposite manner when Canadians are focused on our personal soil,” she stated, including the federal government had nonetheless not launched a promised overseas agent registry.
The flip of occasions has left Singh feeling as if he and Canada’s giant Sikh group are sacrifices to financial technique.
Indian Excessive Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik’s latest denials and makes an attempt guilty Canada for the rift in relations have added to the issues.
“That, to me, reveals India’s perspective,” Singh stated.
Canada is restarting a relationship with “those that don’t have any regret. They don’t have any recognition of what they’ve accomplished, and based mostly on the excessive commissioner’s feedback this week, they don’t have any intention of correcting something.”
Whereas police have been arresting road stage Bishnoi gang members, Sikh organizations need the federal government to publicly disclose the main points of India’s actions.
“Vital and substantive steps are required to regain the Sikh group’s belief,” Singh stated.
Moninder Singh exterior the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, Surrey, B.C., Sept. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
Since Nijjar’s homicide, Singh has once more been compelled to stay aside from his household for lengthy stretches. Pals typically tail him with their vehicles, hoping they may be capable to intervene if assassins make their transfer, he stated.
He believes India’s goal is to silence its most outspoken critics, and he isn’t ready to allow them to get away with it.
“We’re not gonna cease doing what we’re doing. That’s what India needs,” he stated. “I’m not holed up in some bunker or something like that. I’m very public.”
“I feel I’m extra public now than I’ve been ever. And I feel there’s one thing drawing that out of me, and plenty of it has to do with my buddy’s assassination.”
Whereas he stated he understands that not everybody agrees with what he has to say, as a Canadian he feels he has the best to precise himself.
“But when India goes to return right here and begin shutting down one dialog with one group of individuals, it opens the door for a lot of different nations to attempt to do the identical.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
